In general, the effective playback of the multimedia content or contents of a multimedia device is obtained, for example, by means of a television set, a Hi-Fi system or again a home cinema.
Conventionally, in the local command of a device for the playback and/or storage of multimedia contents, such a device is driven by means of a remote control unit specific to it. In general, a remote control unit of this kind uses the infrared channel as its transmission channel.
Today, there is high demand by users for access in a situation of mobility, especially in order to download or exchange files, for example audio type files in the MP3 format, between a mobile terminal and a data storage unit, for example of the personal computer (PC) type.
There are two methods of wireless access in the prior art enabling a mobile terminal to link up with and communicate with a personal computer (PC) playing the role of a multimedia device, through a radio link.
It must be noted that, to the knowledge of the inventors, the use of the two known techniques presented here below for a dedicated multimedia device (for example a drawing room DVD player) has never been envisaged.
Access by “proximity wireless link” (here below also called “simple mobile remote control” mode”) is a first method according to which the mobile telephone and the personal computer (PC) are each equipped with a dedicated communications module, for example of the Bluetooth type (this standard is also known as IEEE 802.15), WiFi (Wireless Fidelity also known as the IEEE 802.11 standard), etc. This first method enables a mobile terminal to engage in direct local dialog with a personal computer (PC). It furthermore enables a user to use his terminal a remote control unit to control operations executed on a personal computer (PC). For example, a Bluetooth remote control unit enabling the control of the playback of musical files stored in a personal computer can be implemented by a personal digital assistant (PDA) equipped with a Bluetooth communications module on which there is installed a Bemused (registered mark) type control software program is installed. This program is executable by an operating system called Symbian (registered mark) embedded in the PDA. In this example, the commands of the PDA are transmitted to the PC through a wireless link according to a radio communications protocol under the Bluetooth standard.
Access by “asymmetric digital subscriber line” or ADSL is the second method according to which the mobile telephone and the personal computer (PC) use a high-bit-rate communications technology enabling the use of already existing telephone lines in order to achieve dialog through the Internet. To do this, a customer-specific software program is implemented in the mobile telephone and a specific software program (server) is implemented in the personal computer (PC). For example, the peer-to-peer Ipra*cool (registered mark) software program for the “remote sharing of applications” by Ipracom (registered mark), enables users to achieve remote access to files contained in a PC, from their “smartphones” or their PDA. It is well known in the prior art that multimedia devices implementing this type of Internet technology must be directly or indirectly connected (i.e. through a residential gateway) to the Internet.
At present, increasing numbers of manufacturers of multimedia devices are providing for IP connectivity on each of their devices, as is the case of example with the devices of the Danish company KISS Technologies (registered mark) so as to enable direct Internet connection, for example through an ADSL/IP link.
Although these methods of access have represented major progress in the mechanism of control of multimedia devices using wireless communications apparatuses, these prior art techniques nevertheless have the disadvantages of limiting the man/machine interface and the services offered by the multimedia devices from the wireless communications apparatuses.
Indeed, as already indicated, in the two prior art techniques, a light software is embedded in the multimedia device to receive and interpret the basic queries transmitted by the mobile terminal (example queries of the “play”, “stop”, and other types). A software program of this kind cannot be used by the multimedia device to propose elaborate and extensive services to the user (for example by associating music with speech etc).
One solution to this problem would consist in implementing a management and content presentation server in the multimedia device. However, this solution has a certain number of drawbacks.
The major drawback of this approach lies in the fact that the hosting of a server type software program that is more powerful (i.e. costly in terms of memory) and more complex substantially increases the cost of the multimedia device, at the risk of taking it out of the reach of the very large-scale consumer public.
Furthermore, whatever the type of use, whether near (simple mobile remote control mode) or remote (Internet technology) of the multimedia equipment, the use menus of the multimedia devices are static (because they reside in the multimedia devices). In other words, there is no interaction of these menus with the outside world. For example, it is not possible to obtain the display on the mobile terminal screen of a page of dialog (for example in the WMF, XHTML, HTML and other formats) having both musical files localized in the multimedia equipment and musical files by the same author offered for purchase by a service operator. In the same way, it is not possible to publish promotional offers on this page that change daily or any other value-added service proposed by the operator. This type of device however is of great interest, both from the user's and the service operator's viewpoint.
Furthermore, this approach is not adapted to the reading of multimedia contents in streaming or downloading mode, from any mobile terminal. Indeed, the multimedia device cannot adapt to the constraints of different types of mobile terminals (i.e. to the streaming and encoding protocols of the different terminals) and of access networks. Once again, if the multimedia device fulfilled this function, it would be at the cost of hosting a complete streaming server leading to complexity and cost incompatible with equipment intended for the general public.